I was reading a post about the importance of distance by Bryan Thomas Schmidt, and wondering if it’s really just fresh eyes that make getting distance from a piece so helpful.
I know when I come back to a story after a few weeks off, I can find all sorts of problems that I’m sure weren’t there before.
Is my brain really mulling things over while I’m working on other things? In theory, I’m learning new things all the time, and I’d be able to apply them to old pieces. But I don’t think the learning curve is that steep.
I’ve mentioned I’m working on a programming project. Distance helps there, too. Since it’s all done in my spare time, there have been gaps of weeks or even months where I haven’t looked or even thought about it. Several times, I’ve opened the file up after a long absence, looked at a thorny problem I’d been stuck on, and fixed it immediately. It’s not like I was doing other programming in the meantime.
Anyone out there know why this happens? (I failed a quick google search. Maybe if I try again next week, I’ll hit the right query on the first try.)